WPF: Binding to Individual Collection Items (But Not in an ItemsControl)

Well, I had a great day yesterday, and quite a surprising one. I had an issue with an idea I was working on, so naturally I turned to Josh Smith.

And guess what I, yes me, the mere mortal managed to teach Josh something about WPF…Ha Ha, check that.

So here is what I taught Josh…..(still can't believe I managed to teach Josh something )

I want to be able to bind multiple controls that are all stand alone controls to a collection. Sounds simple enough, right.

Check this code behind:

 1:  using System;
 2:  using System.Collections.Generic;
 3:  using System.Collections.ObjectModel;
 4:  using System.Linq;
 5:  using System.Text;
 6:  using System.Windows;
 7:  using System.Windows.Controls;
 8:  using System.Windows.Data;
 9:  using System.Windows.Documents;
10:  using System.Windows.Input;
11:  using System.Windows.Media;
12:  using System.Windows.Media.Imaging;
13:  using System.Windows.Navigation;
14:  using System.Windows.Shapes;
15:
16:  namespace WPF_test
17:  {
18:      public partial class Window1 : Window
19:      {
20:          public ObservableCollection<string>
21:              MyValues { get; private set; }
22:
23:          public Window1()
24:          {
25:              MyValues = new ObservableCollection<string>();
26:              MyValues.Add("array");
27:              MyValues.Add("element");
28:              MyValues.Add("bindings");
29:              //use the ObservableCollection<string> MyValues  as
30:              //the DataContext for the Window
31:              this.DataContext = MyValues;
32:              InitializeComponent();
33:          }
34:
35:          private void Button_Click_0(
36:              object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
37:          {
38:              MyValues.Clear();
39:              MyValues.Add("bindings");
40:              MyValues.Add("element");
41:              MyValues.Add("array");
42:          }
43:
44:          private void Button_Click_1(
45:              object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
46:          {
47:              MyValues.Clear();
48:              MyValues.Add("element");
49:              MyValues.Add("bindings");
50:              MyValues.Add("array");
51:          }
52:
53:          private void Button_Click_2(
54:              object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
55:          {
56:              MyValues.Clear();
57:              MyValues.Add("array");
58:              MyValues.Add("bindings");
59:              MyValues.Add("element");
60:          }
61:      }
62:  }

And here is the XAML code. This is where the individual elements are bound to the MyValues collection. Let's see:

 1:  <Window x:Class="WPF_test.Window1″
 2:      xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
 3:      xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
 4:      Title="Window1″ Height="300″ Width="300″>
 5:
 6:
 7:      <Window.Resources>
 8:          <ContentPresenter x:Key="cont1″ Content="{Binding Path=.[0], Mode=OneWay}"/>
 9:          <ContentPresenter x:Key="cont2″ Content="{Binding Path=.[1], Mode=OneWay}"/>
10:          <ContentPresenter x:Key="cont3″ Content="{Binding Path=.[2], Mode=OneWay}"/>
11:      </Window.Resources>
12:
13:      <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical">
14:          <Button Content="{DynamicResource cont1}" Click="Button_Click_0″/>
15:          <Button Content="{DynamicResource cont2}" Click="Button_Click_1″/>
16:          <Button Content="{DynamicResource cont3}" Click="Button_Click_2″/>
17:      </StackPanel>
18:
19:
20:  </Window>

And real guts of this post is the Content=”{Binding Path=.[0], Mode=OneWay}” part, see how it uses the . notation, which means current Binding, and the [0] indexer.

Neat, huh? And here it is running:

You can see a demo project here.